Digital Reputation Analysis as a Political Tool 2. February 2010 – 18:09 by ActValue Consulting & Solutions

Web 2.0’s great power cannot be ignored.

Politicians have shown to understand this issue very well. They know that this new
way of communication can be used as a powerful tool to disseminate political programs
and to influence voters. Independent studies have shown that in the US President
Barack Obama has won the elections thanks to young people as never before. This
part of the population has voted for the democratic candidate en masse (2 out of
3 voters) and the number of young voting people has increased, for the very first
time, much more in comparison to any other voting category. In fact the influence
of the evolution in communication in the Web2.0 era has changed the way voters follow
the election campaign.

Voters are no longer simple watchers but nowadays they are proactive subjects who
determined the political programs and trends through the power of the informal web
(e.g. forum, social network, blog, newsgroup e wiki) which means that citizens exchange
opinions (positive or negative ones) in a free way , without discrimination.

Similarly politicians should use the same tools to test, detect and understand how
their programs are perceived by the voters and they can stimulate discussions and
gather useful feedback. Based upon the outcome of last year’s election, we estimate
that in Italy candidates who will be able to exploit web 2.0 can win up to 30% of
the voters aged between 18 and 25, the ones who did not vote.

The analysis and interpretation of opinions, judgments and prejudices found on the
net is a core activity for the protection and the promotion of brands, products
and services, people in terms of visibility, reputation, credibility. Candidates
should borrow this model from marketing (e.g. President Obama is a brand) to supervise,
defend and emphasize their image in order to create a competitive advantage for
the future. Audience will resonate a candidate’s name to a good feeling of deep
trust. Thus it is very important, as a political strategy, to create a feedback
between information gathered on the net and the definition of a candidate’s political
program

Here below we propose a model which can be used for web reputation analysis in the
political contest.

This model needs to be detailed and refined. The analysis outcome will then include
a Position Map of web domains, built upon their relevance, their visibility and
the tone (either positive or negative) of the conversations they host.

Participating in a few selected conversations and stimulating the right channels
a candidate will then be able to create a positive environment and influence the
voters’ feelings towards his/her political messages.

Concluding, we can say that web 2.0 is a terrific tool and it may give good interaction
opportunities to everybody; on the other hand it requires professionalism, skill
and experience to define and execute winning political strategies.

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Politics 2.0 - The Obama Campaign 26. June 2009 – 14:11 by Centre for E-Government

Barack Obama’s electoral campaign represents a masterpiece in online-campaigning. The use of ICTs and the creation of an Obama-brand were the key features to mobilising the masses. Obama’s opponent, senator McCain, couldn’t motivate as many people to participate in his campaign.

Barack Obama was registered on more than a dozen different social media, the main ones (Facebook, MySpace, YouTube, Twitter) included, and succeeded in forming an online community that strongly supported his goals. The online-headquarter was my.barackobama.com (MyBO) “[which] was at the heart of the campaign’s new media strategy. [… The] site allowed users to create events, exchange information, raise funds, and connect with voters in their area. MyBO was the digital home from which the campaign could mobilise its army of supporters.” [2] This portal helped creating a community with more than two million profiles. Of course, the easy-to-use website also attracted adversaries, which made community managers essential to evaluate and delete certain statements if necessary.

Citizens participate in Obama’s Campaign

The operators of MyBO established a strong sense of community as everyone with political interest could participate. In blogs, people could express themselves and report about their personal experiences during the campaign. Useful information, such as phone lists and guides for campaigning, were distributed via this internet-portal; even fund-raising-statistics of all members were included. However, the “real spirit of the community could be seen in the more than 200,000 offline events organized through MyBO.” [2]

The Obama campaign collected 13 million email addresses and sent one billion emails to mobilize its supporters. “The Obama team used email as an integral platform to engage supporters, bloggers, and online media. Often overlooked by traditional communications departments, email has one major advantage: speed.” [2] Putting email recipients into groups gave the campaign the opportunity to send individually designed messages to specific groups of people. An even faster way to communicate is SMS, which can be used to contact people without internet access, especially in rural areas.

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